The Horses of SONG

The Horses of SONG are very much Characters in their own rights.

They were in the Story Line/s from the beginning and it quickly became clear that at least some of them would develop into something more than 'just horses'.

And so it was.

Visioning them from the get-go I saw big strong beautiful horses, as much 'larger than life' as our Characters. The first time I saw a photo on line of Percherons I realized that yes indeed they were the Horses of Song I had been visioning.

The other day I went to a shindig nearby, at a historic site called Boggsville (another post on that later) and one of the first things I laid eyes on was this pair of horses.

Seeing Percherons, the Horses of SONG, in photos and videos on line was all well and good, but I had personally never seen any in the flesh ...

Until I did.

I thought I was seeing things, frankly. Shook my head, blinked a couple of times and said to myself, "Nah. It can't be!"

Still, I was enchanted by these big strong beautiful horses. There was this pair of blacks (fictionally speaking the Blacks of Lairdubh/Perth), and another pair of pale dapple greys (the Silvers of Dunnottar).

And I shook my head again.

The Boggsville event was filled with folk from the era the Younglings are taking us into at the moment - the American Wild West days - so it was very much a step back in time for me the way it was. There was a Chuckwagon Cookoff going on so several covered wagons were on site, which definitely caught my attention as I want to make a facsimile of one. Most of the people there were dressed in Old West clothes, and of course the restoration of the houses at Boggsville featured living accommodations of the era. Musicians were filling the air with old songs from times now long gone (but for those who keep them alive for us).

And there were the horses.

The Horses of SONG.

I took a few photos and then finally asked.

"They're Percherons."

Having already fallen completely under their spell, and the thought already having crossed my mind, it still felt a mite odd to have it confirmed.

The owner of the Blacks (never did get his name) bid me get as close as I wanted, and so I did.

Harnessed because they were taking turns with the others providing carriage rides, still the powerful clean lines of them were obvious.

I come to about the shoulder of their owner (above photo) which put my face at about shoulder height (almost) on them. They're tall all right!

Yet when I stood in front of the one without the star on his forehead, he bent his head and oh so very gently put his face against my chest and snuffled quietly, getting my scent maybe. From behind it must have looked as though I had sprouted a pair of big horse ears from the tops of my shoulders. If I hesitated about being too familiar at first meeting, he did not. I could have hung out near these two all day but forced myself away to explore the houses and other things different folk had going on.

And I'm still kind of shaking my head at the sensation of having gone to Boggsville to get a feel for the American West days that I'm supposed to be writing about, only to come face to face with the Silvers of Dunnottar and the Blacks of Perth/Lairdubh.

*smiling*

Why I find that odd I'm not sure.

By now I ought to expect such things.

Colorado - These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Quick pics from an exploratory day trip.

Sometimes taking an unfamiliar road to a place you've never been 

is a good idea after all.

I will take this road again

and again

and again

until I know it.

Busy As All Get-Out And Loving Every Minute

Just lately I really have been busy, even more so than usual.

COME  HELL AND HIGH WATER, the Alianora Books of SONG, are all headed for print and the Younglings are clamoring for attention while Sass and Aine are vying to see which will produce the next set of books for SONG. Caileen, being of a more patient nature, stands by, watching the dispute.

Sass' main 'argument' is that she's technically next in the line up.

Aine suggests that the timeline of Sass might be a bit ... tumultuous ... all things considered. She thinks we all need a change of pace. Plus she's in a hurry to get to the New World, and to take us all along with her.

Danann of Dunnottar, their father, stands with Sass, arms folded.

Sidhelagh of Dunnottar, the mother of the Sisters of Dunnottar, just smiles. Me, I have a feeling she might have something up her sleeve, but she's not saying anything. At all. She's just smiling.

Which of the two will prevail is anybody's guess.

The Younglings, on the other hand, are yammering that they want to be about having their adventures. To them, time and place aren't the least bit relevant. Their adventures take them all over the Spiral.

So there's that.

While Aine and Sass argue their cases, we'll likely tend to the impatient Younglings, which is no hardship by any means. Their adventures are going to be a great deal of fun for all concerned.

Meanwhile, I've been focusing on getting a garden going. For the first time in WAY too long, I've got some things planted, and none of them have died (yet). You'll likely see more posts about it along the way. Look for the Straw Bale Garden posts.

Another string to my harp is working that little calf hide. At the moment it's been mostly scraped (another time or two to go as we progress through the procedure) and is in the 'pickling solution'. The posts about it will probably have 'Tan Your Hide' labels.

There are a few art projects in the works, neglected for the moment but I'll soon be back to them.

And I've been reading my way through the remnants of my collection of westerns, books about the American West, so that I can get them into the mail to my grandboy in Minnesota.

Add to all that a full time job that I adore, people around me who are awesome, Duke keeping me company, getting outfits and accessories done for the Character Collections, adjusting to a very definite change in climate :) ... and the meeting of new friends ... not to mention the things I haven't had time to even get started on ... yes I've been busy.

And yes I've been loving every minute of it.

Short Stories,Tall Tales, and Such : Live on Kindle : Amazon

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(or get it on Kindle!)

Rua and the Brownies take on some Pesky Pixies in this book of short pieces.

*laughing*

Got that one finished and thought,'Well, this book is about ready to go now!'

Then had a horrifying thought: I had promised somebody a Tall Tale about Paul Bunyan and Babe - and it wasn't written, let alone in this book. 

So I tagged it on at the end of Rua's story since that file was already open and fomatted for this book. Hurried to get it in, and went to work getting it published.

It was only during the final on line editorial preview that I found I had put Rua's story in twice and Babe's love for salted herring and subsequent thirst was nowhere to be found.

*sigh*

So back into the book's working file I went, got it straightened out, changed the name of the file to avoid confusion, and re-submitted it.

This little book has a lot in it, truth be told.

Elves, 

the first adventures of Renegade, Rebel, Rogue, and Riley 

(and introducing Reckless and her horse Roger), 

thoughts on religion, spirituality, and mysticism, 

a bit of family history, 

some Shakespeare, 

a modern day Sass doing what Sass does, 

a couple of esoteric pieces, 

Giant Worms and Skeeters, 

some French History presented by Sass, 

a bit of an introduction to the PHI Line when Brann meets up with Danann of Perth on the Spiral ... 

and of course Rua's Pesky Pixies!

I'm finally getting a few of these projects filed into the 'Finished' folder, trying to clear my desktop for what's coming up next.

Being as I have a couple of days off from shift-work here, now's as good a time as any to get on with getting on!

And so back to editing I go ... this time I think the poetry book. I keep putting it off because I keep writing poems. That's not really a sensible reason to not get a book published when it's ready to go, you know. There are ALWAYS going to be poems coming, one after another after another. I may as well go with what I've already got, and let the new poems go into a book of their own. What the heck. 

I'm just about back 'on schedule' ... getting closer!

Anyway, look for poetry next I think. Then maybe SNARK if I can come up with enough Snarky things to go into it. I hope I can because the next books of SONG (all of the rest of them, when it comes to that) have to have bad guys in them. Seriously bad. I'm not used to writing such things but ... all I can do is the best I can do with what I have to work with at any given time. I'll give it my best shot.

TREEING A TOWN ... AND HEROES ...

Bill Cody


In some of the old Western stories, the bad guys would get a wild hair and decide they were going to tree a town.

That means moving into the town in force and making the local population do whatever the bad guys said. 

Technically the phrase is related to hunting (as in raccoons or some such) where you chase your prey up a tree where it's trapped. If it sits tight you can shoot it out of the tree. If it tries to get out of the tree you can shoot it when it tries to get away. Essentially it's done for, at your mercy.

I never read a story where the bad guys actually succeeded in treeing a town, at least not for very long. Because you see, they never were all that smart. They forgot that, at the time and in the place, they weren't the only ones with weapons. It seems they never took into consideration that in the towns they wanted to tree there were plenty of folk who might find their behavior a mite unfriendly and not lined up quite right with the general good of the town. 

Back in those days the Civil War wasn't very far in the past so there were lots of veterans around, not to mention hunters, not to mention people who could and would shoot a coyote or a snake or a skunk or a bear or any other kind of varmint that might harm their homes, hearths, or herds.

So when a bunch of bad guys showed up thinking they could tree a town they were biting off a lot more than they could chew.

Frankly, I do believe it would do our world a lot of good for everyone, everywhere, to read the old Westerns that tell about such things.

I tell you true.

And it wasn't just the men who could and would defend what was theirs to defend.

Everyone has their own Western heroes. The ones pictured above are only just to make a point. The 'famous' ones are many and many. The ones who aren't famous were many and many more than those who are.

You want a list of American Heroes?

Go to the census files from our earliest days. Follow the names you find there as they make their way into whole new lives. Those names, the people they represent, my friend, are the heroes of this nation.